


Time Will Bring Your Heart (A Clearest Blue Remix)

by clotpolesonly



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Camelot Remix, Immortal Merlin, M/M, POV Outsider, Post-Season/Series 05 Finale, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-05-13 07:39:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14744681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clotpolesonly/pseuds/clotpolesonly
Summary: When Merlin loses Arthur, he doesn't think of all the people who lose him. Or the people he will lose - and gain, and lose - in the meantime.





	Time Will Bring Your Heart (A Clearest Blue Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mssdare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mssdare/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Clearest Blue](https://archiveofourown.org/works/617439) by [mssdare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mssdare/pseuds/mssdare). 



> this is probably not the fic you were expecting me to remix, lol. i have a habit of getting snagged by obscure little gen ficlets for this challenge, i wonder what that says about me?
> 
> anyway, i had a lot of fun with this!! it is very much not my usual style ( _verbose_ ), so working to pare my writing down to more match the style of your original work was a struggle but a good one. i hope you enjoy this little glimpse into the other side of the curtain ;)

The young warlock’s struggle is painful to witness, no less so for how futile Kilgharrah knows it to be. Tug and tug and tug though he might, it serves no purpose in the end.

The king is dead.

Still Merlin rails against that painful but inevitable truth. For years he has devoted himself to the protection of his king, as Kilgharrah had instructed him to do.

Now, with the scent of blood and tears on the breeze and the ache of age in his bones, Kilgharrah thinks that perhaps he taught the boy too well.

 

 

 

***

 

Hunith finds her boy where Gaius had told her he would be, the letter with its instructions neatly folded in the pocket of her skirt.

She finds someone thin and vacant who takes hours to notice her hands in his hair.

He comes with her without complaint. He stares at his childhood home like he’s never seen it before.

He stares at her much the same way.

It’s only days before he slips out in the night without a word, footsteps quiet enough that Hunith wouldn’t have known at all if she hadn’t lain awake.

She lets him go.

Her son isn’t dead, but still she mourns.

 

 

 

***

 

Gwen puts quill to paper for the sixth time with little hope, one hand on her rounded stomach.

Inside she feels the last of Arthur taking root, growing, flourishing. She trembles with it.

 _We want you back,_ she writes, wishing for the steady warmth of her oldest friend at her side. She is chilled without him. _We need you back. I'll understand if you can't. Please think about it._

When the letter leaves her hand, she knows it is the last she will send, just as she knows she will receive no response.

The baby kicks against her palm, as alive as his father is not.

Gwen shakes.

 

 

 

***

 

The circlet is no crown, but still it does not rest easy on Leon’s head. Nor does the baby rest easy in his arms, or anyone else’s.

He doesn’t resemble his father and yet Leon sees little else.

Young Arthur wails as if he knows what trouble waits for him. As much as he wishes otherwise, Leon cannot face the coming challenges in his place.

He sends another letter, eyes searching the roads daily for a glimpse of blue and red and brown.

It doesn’t come.

Arthur cries.

 

 

 

***

 

Percival hardly recognises the man he finds at the lake’s edge. For all that he hasn’t aged a day these last eight years, Merlin has grown old.

He wears the shadow of those lost like a burial shroud.

Percy swallows the ghost of Gwaine’s last words and says, "The boy has no one, Merlin. Leon does what he can, we all do. But none of us knows how to tame Arthur."

A strange kid, but a good one. His mother’s hair and his father’s smile.

Percy doesn’t say how much he thinks Gwaine would’ve loved the boy but he thinks Merlin hears it anyway.

Maybe that’s why he turns away.

 

 

 

***

 

Arthur II loses the first game of knights-and-bandits but he wins the second. He smiles because that’s how it should be. He’s the prince, after all.

A man at the wood’s edge looks at him funny and then runs away.

It’s strange but Arthur doesn’t much care.

He wins the third game too, as he should.

 

 

 

***

 

Arthur II doesn’t like the man from the woods. He looks like a scarecrow, all skin and bones, and he stares and stares and _stares._

Arthur doesn’t want this man as his guardian. He doesn’t need a guardian anyway, no matter what Leon says.

He hides and he kicks and he bites to keep everyone away.

The man waits.

The man sits on the dirty floor.

The man makes sparks dance in the air and draws pictures like Arthur has never seen before.

 

 

 

***

 

Leon says that Merlin knew his father. Maybe that’s why he stares.

Maybe that’s why Arthur’s _“I hate you”_ makes him so upset.

 

 

 

***

 

Merlin isn’t so bad. He still stares and he makes Arthur clean his own chambers like a servant, but he’s not bad.

He makes pictures from sparks whenever Arthur asks.

He answers all of Arthur’s questions, no matter what they’re about.

He lets Arthur fall asleep in his lap.

Sometimes when he stares, he even smiles.

 

 

 

***

 

Arthur II is eighteen years old when he is crowned.

His people stand behind him, cheering for their king, as Arthur swears that he will lead with honor and nobility as best he can. Young as he is, he feels ready.

He was born to rule.

Yet when Merlin places the crown upon his head, Arthur cannot help but feel that it is not _him_ Merlin is seeing.

For the briefest moment, he wishes he could resent that.

 

 

 

***

 

Arthur II holds the squalling infant gently, his wife red-faced and panting at his side. The babe looks far too small for his large, clumsy hands.

He beams anyway and turns to share his pride with Merlin, his guardian, his best friend and most trusted advisor. Merlin does not smile in return.

“And what shall you be naming the lad?” the midwife asks.

His wife pats his arm, eyes weary but warm as she nods.

“Arthur,” he says.

Merlin flees and, for the first time in years, Arthur does not follow.

 

 

 

***

 

Arthur V is the first to see lines on Merlin’s face. He abandons his arithmetic lessons to climb in Merlin’s lap and trace them with his fingers.

Merlin sets him back to work but even the scolding sounds tired.

 

 

 

***

 

Arthur IX tugs on Merlin’s beard from the moment he’s born, his father looking on in amusement. It’s starting to go grey.

Arthur VIII does wonder why his old friend ages so slowly.

No one seems to know.

The man’s just always been there.

Looking down at his babe in Merlin’s arms, Arthur VIII can’t help but be glad no matter the mechanism that his son will have the same warm guidance that all his forefathers had.

 

 

 

***

 

Arthur XII grins up at Merlin when the crown is placed upon his head, as all the kings of Camelot have done before him, the roar of _“Long live the king!”_ filling his ears.

In the thrill of the moment, he doesn’t notice that the old man never joins in the chant.

None of them ever seem to notice that.

 

 

 

***

 

Once on patrol, Arthur XIV is told by an older knight that old man Merlin used to be a great sorcerer. That he could shake the earth and make the sky rain fire.

Arthur scoffs.

It’s been centuries since there was magic like that, if there ever truly was.

The sparks are lovely, but they’re just sparks.

 

 

 

***

 

Arthur XIX lies back against his pillows, breath rattling in his frail chest. His children sit by, teary and solemn, awaiting the inevitable.

Old man Merlin sits as well, watching over Arthur as he has done since the beginning. As he has done for all of the Pendragon line for far longer than anyone can remember.

His eyes are dry but they carry an ancient sadness that puts the wettest of tears to shame.

How many pyres has he lit? How many kings has he laid to rest?

As his own end nears, Arthur sends up a prayer that whatever is holding the man here releases him.

Surely he’s earned his rest too.

 

 

 

***

 

Merlin’s dark hair is a mess and there are lines pressed into his cheek from the creases of his pillow. His eyes flutter open slowly.

Arthur only sometimes remembers his previous life— _their_ previous life, the one they shared together so long ago, flashes coming to him in his dreams—but he’s always remembered Merlin’s eyes.

With the way Merlin stares back at him, open wonder on his face, Arthur knows that Merlin never forgot his either.


End file.
